


Fruit

by omphale23



Category: Life
Genre: Gen, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:17:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/pseuds/omphale23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dani doesn't accept apologies for things that are no one's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fruit

He offers mangoes and, when that doesn't work, papaya and banana and even pineapple. She refuses all of them, because she doesn't take things from strangers (not when she knows them by name) and she knows that all of it, even the orange that he didn't grow but would have if it weren't November, means _I'm sorry you got stuck with me_. Dani doesn't accept apologies for things that are no one's fault.

When he vanishes during a case, leaves her in a room full of pot with a giant snake on the loose and his old partner (who does not shut up, ever, and if it'd been Dani thirteen years ago the only dead body would have been Bobby Fucking Stark, LAPD) to go be not-zen for a day, Charlie doesn't come back with gifts.

He comes back with a murderer-turned-preacher and a twitchy trigger finger and a sad dead calm in his eyes.

She buys them both sodas from the machine and a package of twinkies. She doesn't say _you did the right thing_ because she would lie and he wouldn't believe it. They watch the interrogation, five hours of circular questions and vague answers. He eats the junk food without a word. Dani thinks maybe he's afraid that if he blinks, it'll all disappear.

The day he's cleared for duty after he shoots his father, Charlie buys lunch. It's not vegetarian. She eats it anyway.

He says it's a gift, because she let him work the case even without his service weapon. (Dani doesn't say anything to that, because they both know exactly how stupid it was.) What he doesn't say is _I'm sorry I lied_. Because this time it _is_ his fault, she doesn't feel guilty ordering dessert.

And when Charlie's lying there, blood soaking into his fancy hardwood floors and his eyes open but blind, locked into some vision that keeps him startled and shaking and staring right through her, the only thing Dani can think to promise is _all the fruit you want, anything you ask, just look at me right now, right here_.


End file.
